His grandfather won a race from Cape Town to Algiers and, along with his grandmother, was the first to fly from South Africa to Australia in a single-engine plane.

Musk’s mother, Maye, was a dietician and a well-known fashion model.

Very little is known about his father, Errol, the only Musk that still lives in South Africa.

A family member describes Errol Musk, an engineer, as a “serial entrepreneur” which almost certainly impacted on Elon.

As a child he would accompany his father to Zambia where Errol Musk owned part of an emerald mine.

About 10 years ago Elon wanted his father to join the rest of the Musks in the United States, which he did for a while.

Errol's Afrikaans wife, however, was not happy and they returned to South Africa where they remain to this day.

The Money Show's Bruce Whitfield interviewed (scroll down for the audio) Errol Musk, father Elon, who shares some heart-warming stories from Elon’s youth in South Africa.

It’s been like that with Elon as far back as I can remember! He had brilliant ideas right from the start. He’s always been a very deep thinker. The things he’d come up with was always very surprising. I realised early on he was very different.

— Errol Musk

His sister Tosca always says that you can ask Elon to do anything on a computer, but don’t ask him to catch a bus!

— Errol Musk

I remember him telling me ‘This is a modem; computers use it to talk to each other’.